Chaitanya's Blog

Book Notes: Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson

Recently finished Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson. I know, I know, very late to this book - but given that I don't read much (of anything) non-fiction, I think it was warranted. First book of 2025, and it was quite an engaging one. Thought it dragged on a bit in the middle, but kept at it since the subject matter is something I have kept up in the news and identified. Few notes:

  1. I did not realize how much of a hippie Steve Jobs was - dropping acid, doing fruititarian diets, walking without footwear in San Francisco, joining a "commune" in Oregon, not wearing deo because he thought him ditching starchy food will make him smell good??? - Atari almost did not hire him because he was unhygenic, reading Autobiography of a Yogi so many times, etc. I had obviously heard of his India trip with Dan Kottke, but was blissfully unaware of all this detail.
  2. This "Woz" vs "Jobs" is a bit pointless. Jobs clearly was the ambitious one, Woz didn't even want to build a company. Credits where it is due in terms of work, but I don't think we would be having this debate if not for Jobs.
  3. For some reason I thought of the "end to end control" as more of a newer phenomenon with the App Store etc. But it being alive since then is quite crazy, its like his dream come true.
  4. I admire his decisiveness, conviction on what he thinks is right, attention to detail, obsession on getting design right and making design as simple as possible.
  5. Although, it is really hard to believe how much of the actual product details went through his direct review given he is a CEO - the book makes it seem like every decision taken on the product was him, and not the hundreds of talented people in the company.
  6. It is funny to watch his rivalry with Bill Gates, both seem like they deserve each other.
  7. He is an asshole, so I do not admire him as a person.

What I want to take away from this: